


Setting The Dark To Right

by Telaryn



Category: Leverage
Genre: Angst, Childhood Sexual Abuse, Dark, Flashbacks, Gen, Heavy Angst, Implied Childhood Sexual Abuse, Moral Ambiguity, Moral Dilemmas, Past Abuse, Past Child Abuse, Past Sexual Abuse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protective Eliot Spencer, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-27
Updated: 2017-01-27
Packaged: 2018-09-20 06:17:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9479108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Telaryn/pseuds/Telaryn
Summary: While volunteering at a local community center, Eliot and Hardison discover that the monster who abused Parker as a child isn't as dead and gone as any of them hoped.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Laughsalot3412](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laughsalot3412/gifts).



> Well. Written for your prompt: _Crew runs into one of Parker's foster families. It isn't pretty._
> 
> It certainly isn't. Which, I think we can all agree that it shouldn't be.
> 
> Thank you so much for playing with us, and I hope I did your idea justice!

Hardison stared off into the distance, focusing on nothing in particular as he turned over their problem in his mind. “This doesn’t feel right, man,” he said finally.

Eliot shook his head. “Ain’t nothing right about any of this,” he said. “You got a better idea, I’m all ears.”

Hacker and hitter had been volunteering at the local community center in Portland going on six months. Eliot taught martial arts to the local kids three times a week in the afternoons, and had talked to the director about a cooking class on Saturday mornings. Hardison was teaching computer classes, offering free tech help to people who wouldn’t have had any idea how to get it – or afford it – otherwise, and had talked with some of the older boys and girls about starting a regular gaming group.

Parker hadn’t wanted to join them. Her excuse at the time was that she didn’t have anything to contribute; privately Hardison and Eliot agreed that the high number of kids from broken and alternative home situations that used the center as a safe haven called up too many painful memories for her.

Unfortunately, that same makeup of kids increased the chance that they would eventually stumble over something they couldn’t look away from. This time it was a girl of about eight years old, who had been watching Eliot’s class for almost two weeks. Every attempt he’d made to draw her into the action had been met with resistance bordering on outright terror.

It left only one conclusion – a crawling certainty that took root in his thoughts and refused to let go. He’d paused only long enough to let Hardison get a look at the girl before suggesting that they needed to bring in Parker to talk to her.

“Did she ever talk about it with you?” he asked, his curiosity finally getting the better of him. It was the thing they all knew but never discussed, except for the one time Nate had decreed the only way they would approach the subject was if Parker brought it up first.

Hardison looked surprised that Eliot had even asked the question, but shook his head nonetheless. “Nah, man. Whatever happened, she made her peace with it somehow.” He seemed to deflate as Eliot raised an eyebrow at him. “You know what I mean. She figured out how to live with it.”

“Figured how to live with what?”

Both of them flinched, startled as Parker suddenly appeared behind Hardison. “Figured how to live with what?” she repeated, looking from hacker to hitter and back again.  
*******************************  
They were acting weird. Not a fun kind of weird either. Parker crossed her arms over her chest and waited for one of the boys to say something.

Eliot broke the silence. “There’s a girl. We need you to talk to her.”

 _Okay…not what I expected._ “Child-girl or grown-up girl/”

Hardison took a small step closer to her. “Child-girl. Parker, there’s something going on with her. She…”

“She won’t talk to us,” Eliot said, effectively cutting the hacker off. “We’re pretty sure you can get her to open up.”

There was something they weren’t telling her, but Eliot had his ‘serious face’ on, and whatever this problem was, Hardison was obviously upset by it. “Okay,” Parker shrugged. “What’s her name?”

They found Cindy in the art room, intent on a picture she was drawing. _Eight or nine,_ Parker guessed, slowing so that Eliot and Hardison drew ahead of her. Blond hair nearly the same shade as the thief’s spilled around the girl’s shoulders and down her back, and her plain features were clouded by a very familiar looking anger.

“Hey Cindy,” Hardison said. Parker winced. She had deeper feelings for the hacker than anyone she’d ever known, but he really was awful with children when he was actively trying to bond with them. _She thinks so too,_ Parker realized, catching the girl’s expression as she looked up at Hardison and Eliot. A shudder rippled across her shoulders, and she hugged her arms tight across her chest. Too much of this was familiar. Something dark and evil was in the room with them; something she hadn’t faced down in longer than she could remember.

“You brought me here on purpose,” she said suddenly, panicking. “You think she’s been abused. You think somebody’s…” Raw, pure evil choked off the words in her throat. Turning, Hardison took a step towards her, but Eliot stopped him.

“We can’t help her if she won’t talk to us,” the hitter told her. His expression was full of sympathy, but Parker also recognized the determined glint in his eyes, the set of his jaw. _A child in trouble._ It was the only thing Eliot could see, and if Parker didn’t help he would keep pushing until he got the information he needed to set things right.

Shifting her focus to Cindy, Parker studied the little girl. _Same age…same build…same expression…_ She already knew the truth Hardison and Eliot suspected, but Eliot was right – they couldn’t start the process to fix things without a full disclosure from the victim. _From Cindy,_ she mentally corrected.

“All right,” she said finally, making up her mind in a rush. “Both of you, back off.”

When they had moved sufficiently away from Cindy, Parker stepped into the space that was left. “Hey,” she said curtly, nodding at the child. Dragging over a chair, she dropped into the seat. “Okay look,” she continued, when Cindy made no comment, “my friends think something bad is happening to you. I think they’re right.” Leaning forward slightly, she rested her arms on her knees. “You can’t make this stop on your…”

 _Bruising at the neckline, just above the girl’s collar._ Parker felt her throat tighten reflexively as the markings caught her eye, dragging her down into a full-blown flashback.

_No one had ever told her why he did it. Hands tightening around her throat, cutting off her air as he brutalized other parts of her body…eyes watching her face as tears turned to terror, then resignation as her vision went gray and her body started to spasm…_

“Parker!”

She came back to herself several feet away from where she’d been. Hardison had her by the shoulders, lightly shaking her as he called her name. Shuddering again as she pushed the last threads of memory away, Parker brought her own hands up to touch the hacker’s arms. “I’m okay. I’m okay.”

“The hell you are,” Hardison countered. “What just happened?”

Not trusting herself to say the words more than once, Parker looked past him. Cindy was on her feet as well, being held back from going to Parker by Eliot. He was watching her too, his expression almost a worried as Hardison’s. Parker kept her attention on Cindy. “He waits until he gets going, doesn’t he?” she asked the girl. “When it really hurts, when you’re crying and wondering how bad it’s going to get?” She heard Hardison’s sharp intake of breath, but pressed on – touching her throat.

“He squeezes. He holds on and he squeezes until you understand that this is the time, this is the…” She was hyperventilating now, but before she could slide into another flashback, Hardison turned her away from the girl – forcing eye contact.

“Parker! Breathe. You’re here. You’re safe.”

She followed his lead as best she could, but he was lying. He didn’t mean to, but Hardison was lying to her. How could she be safe when that monster was still loose in the world?

“Her name,” she managed to get out, finally – letting Hardison’s well-loved features ground her. “What is her foster father’s name?”

“Stephen Armstrong,” a quiet voice said, and as the words penetrated her brain Parker’s world came irrevocably unraveled.  
********************************  
It wasn’t the first time Eliot had killed the man who stole Parker’s innocence. He wasn’t the only one either, as he looked across and realized that Hardison had likely also lain awake nights slaying the monster in increasingly bloody and creative ways. _And now that we have him in our reach, what the hell do we do about it?_

He looked down at Cindy again, and had to take several slow, deep breaths to keep himself from leaving the center, tracking down Mr. Stephen Armstrong, and making him reconsider most of his life choices. _He waits until he gets going…_

Eliot’s sexual experience wasn’t anywhere close to vanilla. He’d dabbled in breath-play more than a few times in his life with willing partners of both sexes and he’d even enjoyed it. This though – what had been done to Parker, and now Cindy, was a degree of perversion and evil he actually had trouble wrapping his brain around.

“What are we doing here?” Hardison asked, breaking the tense silence that seemed to have blanketed the room.

“We’re killing him,” Parker said, in her matter-of-fact, “I don’t give a shit what the rules are” voice.

“No,” Eliot said sharply, wondering a moment later why _he_ was the one suddenly channeling Nate and Sophie?

“Yes,” the thief countered, taking a step closer to him. “This is what we do. This is what Nate always says. We pick up where the law leaves off.”

“Plus it has the advantage of being what really needs to be done,” Hardison chimed in. Eliot suddenly wished they had a safe place they could put Cindy while they argued this all out, but if Armstrong had been gaming the child welfare system for this long, he wasn’t sure there was a place safe enough.

So instead, he faced down his teammates. “You think so?” he asked Hardison. “I’ll tell you both what I told Nate when he was going to kill Dubenich – you have no idea how killing someone’s going to change you.”

“I can live with that,” Parker said quickly, and Eliot scowled as Hardison nodded.

 _”Keep them safe.”_ Sophie’s mandate to him. Eliot wanted to believe she’d never considered it would eventually lead him here, but knowing her she probably had. “Look, Parker,” he said finally, “you know that if you really want him gone I’ll take care of it. Hell, I’m still not sure that isn’t the right way to go.”

He stepped slightly to one side then, bringing Cindy back into the discussion. “This isn’t just about you, though. Not anymore. We treat this like a job, we pull together intel, we make a plan. We do what’s best for Cindy and any other kids he might be messing with.” He sighed. “Then, if we decide _together_ that me taking him out is the right way to go, I’m in.”


End file.
